Right Balance and Dance

Maria Calegari and Bart Cook, former Principal Dancers with the New York City Ballet, recently spoke about the Libra Festival on a 2025 Initiative webinar. The following extracts are reproduced with permission.

The Tibetan describes for us the science of the interludes which keep the Plan progressing. Libra begins a point of stillness, quiet reflection and poise which we as members of the New Group of World Severs can make of spiritual significance and service. 

The second stanza of an esoteric mantram describes this Libran poise;
“I stand in restful poise and from that poise I can attract the gifts which I must give- an understanding heart, a quiet mind -myself.”

Esoteric astrologer and disciple Dane Rudhyar gives us the keyword of “ease”… as “an expression of totally accepted relatedness-be it with an object, a situation, or a person. It is the utter lack of mental reservation in approaching a relationship and acts which this relationship demands; as a dancer is related to the floor, a speaker to his audience,(or as) a participant in an international conference to humanity whose many faces he beholds around him.”  Gifts of the Spirit p 76

Dancers are a good example of ease and elegance. Through the training and discipline of the physical form, matter and spirit meet at the midway point of expression. Both ease and elegance are necessary components to express beauty, joy and vitality. A good example of this is the ballet Serenade by George Balanchine which we have danced many times and have taught to many ballet companies throughout the world.  George Balanchine was our teacher and founder of the New York City Ballet. He was born in St. Petersburg and he fled Russia in 1925 to Paris where he collaborated with other important artists at that time like, Stravinsky, Nijinsky, Prokofiev and Nicholas Roerich.

Relationship and balance is paramount between the dancers, the music and the audience. Right balance is an early learned activity within the body that creates poise and equilibrium.

After years of experience with the ballet we know that balance comes from a strong inner core muscle group and an awareness of all that is around you.  This strength gives us the ability to use the opposite sides of the body as a whole, to move with freedom and grace. It also allows us to do movements that are off balance as well and to create motion that is fast or slow. A strong core allows movement with the least possible effort which produces beauty and grace.

Aided by the incoming 7th Ray of Ceremonial Order and Ritual as well as the devic energies poured through sound and music, the art form of ballet can be a distributer for healing energies and balance so needed in our world today.

The ballerina has an unusual job of achieving balance dancing on the tip of the pointed shoe which is only an inch around. The whole body must be sustained on this very tiny platform.  When being partnered by a male dancer in classical ballet we can achieve even greater freedom of balance with this support showing us how much more we can achieve when working together. 

Wrong balance in the dancer comes from misalignment like when the body is slouched or leaning too far forward or back. Right balance for the dancer just like for the disciple comes from proper alignment. From the feet all the way up the spine to the head, the vital energy must connect all the bodies to be able to move freely with the energies of the whole group of dancers or corps de ballet as well as with the energies of the audience. 

The necessary discipline of being a professional dancer lends itself well to the discipline of becoming a consciously developing disciple. Being the dancer and vehicle for transmission - and then becoming the teacher of how to be the transmitter- the instrument.

As ballet dancers we begin the day in an intensive focused class of energetic balance, each morning practicing versions of repeated exercises and the use of force in exact quantities for the specific combination of steps. When you had learned how to execute these moves it was almost better to do these exercises without thinking so as to develop the habitual movement. Mr. Balanchine used to say, “Don’t think; just do!”

I must admit it took me a long time to understand what he meant. I think it was more like don’t let your lower mind get in the way of what you are trying to learn at this moment. Some of his other choice phrases were; “Where are you,” and “Whose legs are those,” meaning be in the present moment, not going over your grocery list in your mind or the activities of last evening. The purpose of this was to achieve right balance in the expression of matter.  The body and spirit balanced as a true source of inspiration and accurate portrayer of ideas.

By trying to help young artists find their focus and balance … each ballet we teach requires a different focus, note and style depending on the choreographer and composer.  Each different company as well presents a different approach to the ballet art form according to the traditions of the country in which they are working and performing. 

Most professional dancers are well trained in executing steps. As teachers we need to liberate them to be more authentic and more empathetic to each other, as a group, and with the audience. We know events in the daily life push the fulcrum from the center of balance to a new point of crisis/opportunity requiring a choice to balance the scales. 

When we look at a picture of the scales we can see a triangle with the top apex acting as the fulcrum between the two trays of matter and spirit. The holder of the top apex is the blindfolded material woman accessing her intuition and higher self. That top apex is the teacher aspect that moves as the lessons arise. As we allow the soul to be the teacher of our personalities, each choice moves towards increased alignment and resolved beauty.

The teacher can act as this catalyst to challenge the student. In dance it can be a new step to nudge the dancer one way or another. Mr. Balanchine used high contrast by giving steps very fast or very slow to pull us out of our comfort zone, a combination of 5 to a waltz tempo or 6/8 tune. Balanchine’s approach to neo-classic ballet was to challenge the status quo of classical ballet providing a new and richer experience for the dancers and the audience and the world.  One based on changing the Balance Points of Ballet more rapidly than ever before.

Going within as the teacher with deeper listening, to synthesize the dancers and their movements allows magic to happen on the stage where “Beauty is an ongoing resolution that never achieves but heads to a newer point of tension and decision.” In this movement of the soul, Libra acts as the great teacher and the bringer of Beauty.

As we more allow Soul to be the teacher, with each choice our personalities will move towards increased alignment and resolved beauty. As we “ let the senses of perception merge into the One”, and “ let the language of the Soul be understood”, we can allow that our actions and our performance in life radiate those sounds of the soul. “Let the soul control the outer form,” “I the triangle divine work out that will within the square and serve my fellow men.” 
 
While in the exterior world- the balance between Men and Women has not been equal, in the world of ballet, the feminine has ever been central. Balanchine often remarked, “Ballet is woman,” and perhaps this art form has contributed to Harmonizing this imbalance.

When UN Goodwill Ambassador Emma Watson gave her iconic speech for the HeForShe campaign she stated that if we live in a world where men occupy the major positions of power, we then need the men to believe in the necessity for change. On May 1, 2017, the former President of the General Assembly Mr. Peter Thompson became an International Gender Champion and reaffirmed his own commitment to equality within his own office and in senior management levels.

We can reflect on Emma Thompson’s words to stop violence of all forms against women; “Both men and women should feel free to be sensitive. Both men and women should feel free to be strong…It is time that we all perceive gender on a broader spectrum, not as two opposing sets of ideals… If we stop defining each other by who we are and start defining each other by what we are-(then) we can all be free.”